5 Track & Field Records Which Can Be Broken in Tokyo

The Olympics are full of many games. In fact there are 339 events in 33 sports. That is a whole lot of sports. Some sports are more exciting than others, for various reasons. One of the most followed sports at the Olympics every year is track and field.

In this article we have put together a list of five records which can be broken this year and list the athlete who is likely to break them.

Men’s 5000m and 10000m

Yes, this race isn’t as exciting as the 100m dash or 300 meter hurdles, but it is a race nonetheless and one which may have a new world record soon enough. A Ugandan athlete by the name of Joshua Cheptegei is the one with the eye on the prize. In 2020 he broke a 16 year old world record by running the 5000m race in 12:35:36

Men’s Marathon

Again, not exactly a track race but the marathon is a highly competitive running event and one which tests the limits of human endurance. Eliud Kipchoge is the runner who is competing to break his own record of 2:01:39

Men’s Pole Vault

We have a case of another athlete looking to break his own record at these summer games. Sweden’s Armand Duplantis is a 21 year old athlete who currently holds the record of 6.18m which he set in 2020. Duplantis is said to be at the top of his game and many people are expecting his old record to fall.

Women’s 20km Walk

I know I know, now we are really getting away from the glamorous track & field events. A 20km walk? Yes, a 20m walk. Chinese athlete Yang Jiayu set the record earlier this year with a time of 1:23:49, Can she top her own record? Many people studying these games seem to think so.

Men’s Javelin Throw

When I participated in Track & Field in high school (1995), we didn’t have a javelin team. I guess there was an injury in recent years and they scratched it from the event list. That is not the case at the 2021 Olympics however. Johannes Vetter of Germany came close to tying or breaking the world record earlier this year by throwing 97.76 meters. The current record is 98.47 set by Jan Zelezny. Is this the year that the javelin record falls?

Well that’s really it for Track & Field. It’s not as exciting as a dozen year ago when Usain Bolt was breaking the 100m and 200m dash record every race. But there will still be plenty of excitement this year.